


spring sooner than the lark

by greywash



Series: The Marriage Plot [3]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Episode 03x05 - A Life in the Day, F/M, Fighting, Intimacy, Let's call it AU after Season 3, Love, M/M, Mosaic Timeline, Multi, Parenthood, Partnerhood, Probably in no way compatible with Season 4, Relationship Negotiations, Screwing, Screwing AND fighting: why choose just one, See story notes for author's warning policy, Vulnerability, canon character death, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 22:36:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16901121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/pseuds/greywash
Summary: Everything fucks in the spring, Marien had told them, cheerfully, from behind his huge bushy grey beard, the last time he'd come by with a load of wood for them—still invalids, in the eyes of the village, after their long black winter—and found them lying together in bed; but Eliot and Quentin, infuriatingly, mostlyhaven't.





	spring sooner than the lark

**Author's Note:**

> I have 130k, spread across an additional two stories (one a ~~long short story~~ novella, one a novel), in the partial and ongoing draft for this universe, which was originally supposed to be under 30 thousand words long, _total_ , so of course I woke up this morning and was like, "Just a _little_ additional story. A storylet. JUST ONE, OKAY? I KNOW THEY'RE LIKE TORTILLA CHIPS, BUT, I PROMISE, I CAN CONTROL MYSELF, LET'S JUST DO IT, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?"
> 
> Title stolen from "[Corinna's going a Maying](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47284/corinnas-going-a-maying)" by Robert Herrick: a.k.a., "We're all gonna be dead soon, babe, so get dressed and let's go to the fair." **None of my warnings apply to this story**. My full warning policy is [in my profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/profile#warnings), and you are always welcome to [privately email me](mailto:greywash@gmail.com) with more specific warning-related questions.
> 
> Thanks to **breathedout** , as always, for the very thorough and very short-notice beta. ♥

Miriam's eldest, Kavli, comes just past dawn for Teddy, having volunteered to take him to see the pavilion go up: "And they put it up with _sticks_ ," he insists, delighted; "Yes indeed," she agrees, scooping Teddy up onto her hip with an _oof_ and a "my, you're getting big"; and then tossing Quentin a genuinely sort of alarming wink. But—God, she must be, what, twenty now, or past it? Not a little girl anymore, crowned with purple flowers and yellow braids, feeding the squirrels from her apron until Miriam scolded her from the bakery window; and Eliot's hand is tightening against the back of the chair, thinking about Petula Jostler tilting her head twining a black curl around a finger looking up at Quentin through her lashes while Quentin hugged their market basket to his chest: barely hearing as Quentin calls, "Be good, Teddy," after Kavli waving back at them and then closes the door and then cups Eliot's face in both hands so fast that Eliot barely has time to think—Petula; and the—the blacksmith's niece; and _Kavli_ , Miriam's _daughter_ , she can't possibly really be—but Quentin's mouth is opening against his, hot and wet and warm and hungry, starting up an uncoiling-lashing risingupoutofhim animal feeling in Eliot's belly—

—and then Quentin rocks back on his heels. Shoulders hunched and tight.

Quentin looks at him. His brown eyes pinched at the corners, before he says, "You don't have to—," but _fuck that_ , because Teddy's out of the house for the morning and the festival won't start properly until noon so Eliot hoists Quentin up by the hips, stumbling backwards to half-throw him down on the big bed, feeling—ravenous, animal: _Everything fucks in the spring_ , Marien had told them, cheerfully, from behind his huge bushy grey beard, the last time he'd come by with a load of wood for them—still invalids, in the eyes of the village, after their long black winter—and found them lying together in bed; but Eliot and Quentin, infuriatingly, mostly _haven't_ : six nights ago Eliot lying flat on his back barely breathing wide-awake past midnight, hours after Quentin had reached for his cheek, whispering, _Do you want—_ , and Eliot had said, _You don't have to—_ , and then Quentin had gotten very very quiet, and then, after a moment, dropped his hand. It'd been a bad day, when Marien had come, that's all. Eight months later and Quentin still hasn't shaken the cough, not entirely, and they both still have. Days, sometimes. That are harder than others; and the children had come to take Teddy for a while, and Quentin and Eliot had just wanted to lie down, for a minute, just—just to rest; but now three weeks later Eliot is wide-awake burning up with it alert in every stinging starving cell of him, rolling onto his back with Quentin up above him peeling out of his own clothes and then dragging Eliot's hands flat onto his body, kneeling wet-mouthed dark-eyed across Eliot's hips and then bending down to lick into his mouth, panting, while he shoves Eliot's shirt up his ribs; yanking clumsily at his suspenders. They can barely get everything _open_ , even: Quentin moaning and jerking above him, rubbing—rubbing their cocks together, getting them both in one clever warm hand—

"Touch me," Quentin whispers, into his mouth, as though—as though Eliot _isn't_ : hands on Quentin's forearm and the back of his neck, shuddering up into it when Quentin drags their mouths together, licking—licking _into_ him: another painful-hot open-open-opening wet kiss that flays Eliot's skin from his body, leaving the wet squelching heart of him— _bare_ —

"God, I want— _Eliot_ ": Quentin's voice cracks, and somewhere in the static white-hot storm of kissing-kissing-kissing him Eliot manages to—to work out, "Any—thing, anyth—ing, baby": and Quentin moans and comes all over the both of them, still stroking them, his wrist trembling face red as Eliot kisses him, over, and over, and over again. His pulse a rabbit-fast throb all over his face and his hands and his throat. Quentin shakes his head, still panting. "God, I want—I want you to fuck me for—fucking _hours_ ," he says, unsteady; and then bites at Eliot's burning mouth again. "How—how do you want to—"

"I," Eliot says, and then hums, half-laughing, sliding his hand around Quentin's wrist, trying to— "If you want me to be able to—"

"No, come now," Quentin whispers, "we can—I want to do it over and over, you can—come for me now, and then—then we can—"

—and Eliot.

Does.

Quentin moans, pressing tight against him, trembling: his mouth to Eliot's hollow mouth, opening.

Opening him up.

"C'mere," Quentin whispers: nonsense, really, but he is pushing his hands up under Eliot's bunched up shirt, pushing—pushing—pushing: pulling his mouth off Eliot's just long enough to get the fabric up between them and then going straight back to kissing him again, still warm and painfully familiar, the way they kissed—years ago, _years_ , lying out on the mosaic, in the sunshine—beside the river—as Quentin rubs his hand down over Eliot's stomach, his sticky-wet pubic hair. Touching him, so-so-so _gently_ , blinking up at him, as he fits a tender, gentle hand over Eliot's soft, oversensitive cock.

Slow, slow, slow, Eliot draws in a breath.

"Can I lick you," Quentin asks, very quietly, and then rubs their noses together; and _Don't_ , Eliot is thinking, helpless, _don't_ feed _me, Quentin_ —

"Yeah," he says, tongue thick; and Quentin slides down between his thighs.

Eliot pulls himself up on an elbow, lifting his hips: Quentin tugs his trousers down, his dangling suspenders, and drops the lot on the floor with a soft rustling thud. Quentin ducks his head down, kissing just under Eliot's ribcage; and Eliot pets a hand through Quentin's rough hair, tucking it back, twisting the ends up into his hand, heavy and thick, as Quentin brushes his lips against him, very, very soft.

Eliot lifts his chin, taking a breath. Looking up at the rafters, bathed in sunlight: breathing. Breathing in. He can't get hard again, not—not yet, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't _matter_. Between his thighs Quentin is lapping at the head of Eliot's cock; fitting his mouth around it, a little too much; and Eliot croaks, "Q—" and Quentin pulls off and nuzzles into the crease of his thigh, sweaty and sticky; licks at the come on his stomach; and all of his strings unraveling, Eliot lets out a deep, slow breath.

"Okay?" Quentin asks, and then detours up to press a kiss to Eliot's left nipple.

Eliot shivers, sinking both hands into his hair. "Yeah," he says, and then takes a breath and says, "yeah, come on, I want—I want you to suck it": and Quentin whimpers, shoulders hunching together, and then bends his head back down to Eliot's crotch.

The thing, Eliot is trying to remember, somewhere deep inside his pulse, picking up to meet them, inside and his aching skeleton and his heavy sodden stupid heart, is that Quentin is, and in fact—against literally everything that is fair or right or just— _always has been_ , a _phenomenal_ sucker of cock. No one, literally _no one_ who rolled into Eliot's life looking like he was in costume as a blind accountant and spent the next seven months practically cringing out of his body whenever someone near him so much as _alluded_ to the idea of sex should be so fucking hot for it that he trembles while he does it, nuzzling all over every even vaguely erotic centimeter of skin between Eliot's knees and his navel, making those delicious hot-hungry little noises, responding _instantly_ to anything that makes Eliot so much as breathe slightly harder—but well. Fair or not, that's how Quentin does it; and Eliot makes it about four and a half minutes, probably, before his body is transmuted into a single long, aching, agonized moan: every inch of him wrung out sweat-soaked and trembling, his hand on Quentin's hand rubbing his fingers against his fingers and their fingers to the hollow-dripping-pit knot of wanting at the base of Eliot's rock-hard aching cock. Every time Quentin sucks at the tip of him Eliot thinks he's going to come again, but he doesn't, he doesn't want, he doesn't want to—

"So tell me," Quentin is murmuring, "what you _do_ want": petting at him; and then putting his mouth back down over him as Eliot cracks and groans, "God, I want to _climb inside you_ — _Quentin_ —" and Quentin climbs back up on top of him, rolling his hips down against him so that Eliot half-levitates up off the sagging straw mattress, back arching, bowed— _up_ —as Quentin rubs their mouths together, thumbing at Eliot's bottom lip and slipping two sticky-salty fingers into him as Eliot groans, licking out. 

"You want to fuck me?" Quentin asks; and Eliot groans, "Oh God yes"; and Quentin laughs, as warm as the sunshine streaming in through their windows to glitter in their dust motes: Quentin rolling off and onto his side for the jar where he keeps his fussy homemade half-magical lanolin-based lube, which Eliot—

—which Eliot hasn't been—

—even letting himself _think_ about, right up until now while Quentin is tugging Eliot's arms around him, tucking a foot back around his calf as Eliot presses up tightclosewarm behind him, curled up on their sides. Helpless Eliot kisses the back of his neck as Quentin slicks up their fingers; and it—it could be— _God_ , six years ago—seven—eight— _nine_ , working his fingers alongside Quentin's into Quentin's body for the first time the second time: trying—trying so hard not to—not to _think_ :

"Like this?" Quentin asks, pulling their hands down, "or do you want me to—"

"I just want to touch you," Eliot confesses, heavy; and then presses his face to Quentin's hair.

At midwinter they'd been still half-delirious, Eliot thinks: the kind of mistake you make from cold and loneliness and grief: Quentin clinging to him kissing him over and over and over and over and _over_ and it wasn't like they'd ever really— _stopped_ being involved, was it? But touching him again for the first time in five years had just brought with it another devastating, flattening wave of grief: oh, God, _Ari_ , as shuddering Eliot had pressed his cock between Quentin's wet thighs. It didn't feel like this, sweat gathering in the small of Quentin's bowed back and all the shutters open and the fucking birds singing about—the glories of spring, or what the fuck _ever_ they're chattering about while Eliot pets at the plush-hot soft clench of Quentin's asshole as whining Quentin twists his head back over his shoulder to kiss him, a longwet hot melting— _slide_ —

"Please," Quentin gasps, "I want—I want you so—so fucking _badly_ , El, _please_ —"

—and helpless Eliot groans and pushes his dick into him, about a thousand years before his brain really wants him to, the mess of his fucked-up head and his cracked-open heart: _inside_ , be _inside_ him; and heart pounding Eliot presses his face to Quentin's shoulder, arms wrapped around him. Squeezing him.

Close.

They fuck for a long, long time. Barely moving, helpless, half-stuck together, _clinging_ to him: the endless roiling drag of their skin on their skin and their twisted off-side lush kisses and Quentin's stubble on his chin and the tightwetslick incandescent feeling of just— _rocking_ into him, _God_ —

"El," Quentin says, voice breaking, " _Eliot_ —"

—and Eliot groans, something cracking inside him, and rolls Quentin onto his face, feeling—out of control. Crazy with it: this huge, lashing-black monstrous pit of longing opening up in him, everything he wants from Quentin, and shouldn't; hammering his heart to his skin and his body to Quentin's warm trembling body and those little—broken—moans out of Quentin's soft throat—

Eliot—goes dark, for a moment, coming. Juddering back into himself with his mouth on Quentin's shoulder and his hand tight around Quentin's hand as Quentin rocks between them crying out and then comes, shuddering all over, when Eliot just-twists to bite down on the side of his throat. _God_ , Eliot can _feel_ it, he'd half forgotten: Quentin's tight, hot, incredible body, shivering everywhere underneath him; God, how will he _stand_ it? How will he—fucking— _live_?

"Okay?" Eliot asks; and Quentin laughs, a little high, still half-hysterical.

"Oh, sure, just." Taking a slow deep breath. "You've—just about _literally_ fucked my brains out, but—sure, I'm. _Okay_ , yes, fine—God, don't, don't pull out."

So Eliot doesn't. As long—as long as he can.

Quentin's breathing slows. Steadies. Rubbing his thumb against the meat of Eliot's hand, still tangled up with his. 

Eliot kisses the back of his neck. His shoulder. Tucking Quentin back against him, stickily: come wet on his thighs. Eliot's sweaty belly, Quentin's sweaty back.

"We probably should get down to the festival," Eliot says, after a minute; and Quentin sighs, squeezing their fist.

"If you think Kavli has, like, _any_ illusions about why I begged her to take Teddy for the morning," Quentin says; and Eliot.

Can feel himself tense.

Quentin's thumb stills. Tucked, still, against Eliot's palm; and then, a moment later, he pulls away—slow, careful, and then rolls over to face Eliot.

His expression—

"Does that bother you?" Quentin asks.

Eliot swallows. "No," he says; but then has to add, "just—don't think you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot?"

"How, exactly," says Quentin, flat; and Eliot sighs, and rolls onto his back.

After a second, Eliot says, "Petula Jostler."

"Is a woman who I know," Quentin says.

Eliot nods. Stomach tight. Petula had been by three, four times a week, all winter: jugs of jam, pots of stew, books, games she'd played sitting up on the little bed with Teddy to keep him from taking the heels of their bread into the woods to call starlings when Eliot could barely pull himself out of bed, when Quentin's cough was so bad he couldn't do much more than huddle, pale and miserable, next to the fire.

"I like her," Eliot says, after a second; and Quentin sighs.

"I know."

"Good with Teddy," Eliot says; and Quentin says, "Eliot, Jesus, I didn't beg you to fuck me through the mattress because I want another wife."

Eliot's heart thumps once. Twice.

"Quentin," he says, and then stops.

After a moment, Quentin asks, "Do _you_ want me to get married again?"

A rush. Hot and prickling, all—all over Eliot's. Hands; and throat; and—face—

Eliot says, "I—," and then.

Stops.

"Fuck," Quentin mutters, and then sighs. 

The cottage is very quiet. Just. Their breath. Outside their walls Eliot can hear—squirrels, chittering; and those fucking starlings. They'll never be rid of them, now. He can hear the river, too, just barely. Further out.

"I can't keep doing this," Quentin says, very quietly. "I—God, Eliot." Taking a breath. "We can't keep doing it like this, it's not fair to Teddy, and it's not fair to me, and it's—frankly it's not fair to you, either, so—you can be Teddy's dad; and you can be my partner; or you can be my lover if you're going to do all of the rest of it too, but—but I'm not going to keep, like, screwing you on the side, or whatever you fucking think we're doing, because—because this fucking start-stop hot-cold bullshit is killing me, okay? So—in or out, Eliot. Tell me what we're doing." Quentin takes a breath. "Because if you fuck me like that and then try to leave me alone with Petula Jostler at the festival again, I am going to _set something on fire_."

Eliot stares up at the ceiling. Silent. 

He is peculiarly aware of his heartbeat. Its warm, trembling instability under his skin. Quentin is so warm, so solid, so present beside him: his one perfect, compact little anchor. 

"You're not— _stuck_ with me, Q," he says; and Quentin barks out a laugh.

"Oh, I—definitely _am_ ," Quentin says, "but if you think that's why I asked you to—why I've been. Fucking _all in_ , on you and me, for the past—God, _ten fucking years_ , while you—helped me raise our son and fell in love with my wife—I'm not pining for Earth, Eliot, _I'm in love with you_." 

Eliot's throat tightens, as his stomach gives a lurch: out of the corner of his eye, Eliot can see Quentin's mouth twisting: that painful, taut parody of a dimple— _God_. 

"I love you, too," Eliot says, quiet.

"Yeah, fuck you," Quentin says, tight. "Because that's not what I said and you know it. I love you, yes, sure, the _entire fucking village_ knows that, but I'm also _in love with you_ , Eliot, and it's not—it's not because of Teddy, it's not because you're _here_ , it's not because you're from _Earth_ , it's not because I can't get it anywhere else, or because I just need to blow off some steam—I'm in _love_ with you, I am stupid-desperate-soaring-romantic-score _in love with you_ , and that's not _new_ , or _different_ , and it's not—fucking _made up_ , okay? It's not _a lie_ , it's my _life_ , it's—I've been in love with you for fucking— _ten fucking years_ , El. A decade. _Longer_ , probably, Eliot, and you—you didn't want to hear it then but I need, I _need_ you to hear it now, okay?"

Eliot swallows. Thick. "Okay," he says, quiet.

Quentin takes a deep slow breath. Pressing his hand across his eyes.

"When you—when you were fucking— _shoving_ me at Arielle," Quentin says; and eyes burning Eliot pushes himself up to sitting, reaching for his shirt.

"You loved Ari," he says, flat; and Quentin reaches over and grabs his wrist.

"Yes," Quentin says. "I did."

His eyes are big and dark. His mouth pulled flat.

"But I need you to remember how we got there, El," Quentin says, very quietly. "My boyfriend dumped me—" _boyfriend_ — "and I—I was humiliated, and furious, and hurt, and—God, _living_ with you, _working_ with you, five feet away from you all fucking day and across the fire from you every night, my _God_. I—I _liked_ Arielle, I always liked her, I wanted her, she was hot, and it wasn't—it wasn't a huge fucking stretch, okay? To fall for a nice good-looking girl who was funny and smart and liked my partner, who liked _me_ and who—free bonus—also made my ex who I totally wasn't over fucking _sick_ with envy—because don't pretend she didn't, Eliot, do _you_ not remember what it was like?" He huffs, an arid, mirthless laugh: "Because I sure as hell fucking do."

Eliot swallows around the lump in his throat, unmoving; and after a second, Quentin slides towards him. Uncurling Eliot's hand, to rub his thumb over its center: Eliot shivers.

"I wanted you to be happy," Eliot says, very quietly.

"I know." Quentin sighs. "I know you did, but you are just—sometimes you are just. So fucking _terrible_ at figuring out what that'd entail—I was so _hurt_ , El." Quentin swallows. "I thought—there was that awful two months where my heart was fucking— _shattered_ and then, like, another four months when I was waiting for you to get your shit together and figure out we weren't over, and then I—yeah, I loved her, I fell in love with her, I don't regret a single fucking second I had with her, but—it's not like it. Fixed me, or whatever."

Eliot looks back at him. Quentin's hand, still petting at Eliot's open hand. His bent head. His face, half-hidden.

"You're not broken," Eliot says, rough.

"No," Quentin agrees. "I'm not": and Eliot has to. Blink up hard at the rafters, for a minute.

"I didn't fall out of love with you," Quentin says, very quietly, "just because I fell in love with her. Any more than you did." Eliot watches his throat move, swallowing; and then Quentin looks up. "And if you hadn't. Stopped. With us, I would've—I wouldn't. I sure as hell wouldn't have done it." 

Quentin stops, his face twisting. His eyebrows are crooked at their middles, pulled down: meeting his eyes is like staring into the sun. Eliot does it, somehow, anyway; as Quentin swallows, noisy, and then shakes his head.

Eliot takes a breath. "You want me to believe that you would've been happy, with. Just me," he says. Heavy in his throat: "Forever."

"Yeah, Eliot, I do," Quentin says.

Soft.

Eliot squeezes his eyes shut tight.

Taking.

A breath.

After a second, he can feel Quentin's mouth press soft to his knuckles. The soft-rough heavy fall of his hair, against the back of Eliot's wrist. 

"I want you, Eliot," Quentin says, very quietly. "I want to give you everything. But if that's what you want, you have to tell me, and you have to do it now." He takes a long, slow, deep and trembling damp breath; and then kisses Eliot's knuckles again. "Because I can't," he says, unsteady, "just—just do this, by itself."

Eliot swallows, and then bends, half-twisting, to kiss the warm fragrant notch where Quentin's hair is parting over his shoulders, right at the back of Quentin's soft neck.

"I love you," Eliot says, very quietly; and Quentin says, "I know."

"I'm in love with you," Eliot says; and Quentin says, "I know," and then lifts up his head.

Straightens. Quentin reaches up. Rubbing a thumb against Eliot's burning cheek: Eliot can't stop looking at him. His lovely serious sweet face.

"I think I've always been in love with you," Eliot says, barely breathing; and Quentin nods, cupping his cheek.

"I know, sweetheart," he says, really gently. "But that's not what I asked." 

His big dark, sad eyes.

Eliot swallows. There is an odd, unstable sort of a wobble, buried somewhere under his sternum. "If I said no," he says; and then takes a breath, and corrects: "if. If it doesn't work out."

Quentin closes his eyes, and then touches their foreheads together.

"Then we'll figure it out," he says, very quietly, "that's not what I'm asking."

Eliot closes his eyes; and Quentin takes a breath. 

"This is your home," Quentin says, very quietly. "I'm—yours, whatever happens, we're yours, I'm not going to leave, and I'm not going to—to take Teddy away from you, or something"; and Eliot—Eliot can't— "Oh, Christ, El": Quentin slides his arm around Eliot's middle. 

Pulling him. Close. 

Eliot curls up. Tucking his face into Quentin's throat.

"You know you gave him to me, right?" Quentin says, very quietly. "You're as much his father as I am"; and Eliot presses his eyes to Quentin's warm rough sweat-smelling skin.

"I'm not, though," Eliot says; and Quentin sighs.

"If I get credit for—like, thirty-four seconds of pumping, you sure as hell should get credit for throwing me at Arielle for a year and a half," he says, gentle; and Eliot.

Squeezes his waist. Mouth twisting: "I'm pretty sure you went down on her first," he says, a little muffled; and Quentin huffs.

"Okay," he says, "thirty-four seconds of pumping, and the truly onerous task of eating her out. My contribution to the kid has been noted": and Eliot loops his arms up, around Quentin's warm bare sticky shoulders and back.

Quentin kisses his temple. Pets at his hair, soft. Very soft. 

"You're always going to be my best friend," Quentin says, really quietly, "and you're always going to be Teddy's dad. But it's gonna break my heart if you keep kissing me and acting like it doesn't mean anything, El": and Eliot swallows.

The breeze through the window is warm and sweet-smelling: they should air the linen, sweep the floor; bring the beds outside again, for the spring, where they can lie together all night under their every too-thin quilt, curled together with Teddy asleep in between them, looking up at the stars.

"It means something," Eliot says, very quietly; and then takes a breath, lifting his head. 

Brushing the tips of their noses together. Pressing. Their foreheads.

Tight.

"I do want you, baby," Eliot says, when he can. "I do want—all of it"; and then lets out a long, slow breath. "I'm all in, too, if you want me," he says; and Quentin huffs. 

"Fucking _finally_ , you asshole," he mutters; and then rubs their noses together. Soft.

Eliot squeezes his shoulders, Quentin's arms tightening up around his middle, their turned-sideways half-twisted bodies locking together, like puzzle parts.

"Hey," Eliot rubs his face against Quentin's: Quentin's soft, loosening sigh. "Hey, I'm sorry," Eliot says, "kiss me," quiet; and Quentin presses his mouth to Eliot's: that same sweet slow marshmallow-soft hot-yes-want-need-please _pulling_ way Quentin has always kissed him: in the doorway an hour ago; shivering in their bed at midwinter; an hour before Eliot bound his hands to Ari's; beside the river; among the trees; on their half-finished quilt ten fucking years ago, or hooking down into the heart of Eliot's half-dead half-just-waking grief-drowning body at Brakebills, drawing—drawing him—

—out.

Eliot takes a breath. Pulling. Back.

Cupping Quentin's hot face.

"You're my best thing," he says, very quietly, "my very best thing, always. You know that, right?"; and Quentin closes his eyes.

"Yeah," he whispers, "I do, I think"; and Eliot leans in to kiss his forehead; and then pushes up to his feet. Holding out his hand.

"Let's go rescue Kavli from the kid," he says, "crown the spring with gold and ribbons, et cetera; make ourselves half-sick on honey cake"; and Quentin lets Eliot pull him up to standing, warm and disheveled, pressing close: dimpling up at him, bare and golden in the dust-filtered sunlight.


End file.
